I had a very pleasant evening on Saturday with my harpsichord-making friend, Grant O'Brien, and his friends, including a short recital on one of his harpsichords by Lucy Carolan, a first-rate player. Grant and I got to talking about lute and harpsichord making in Italy, and he revealed a couple of interesting points:
1. all Italian harpsichords had fir soundboards, not spruce, as found north of the Alps. Did I know of any fir-soundboarded lutes? Well, I didn't. Can anyone contribute something here? 2. the tiorbino: here is a fascinating article from Grant's website, discussing a keyboard instrument called the tiorbino, apparently gut-strung, like the lautenclavier: http://www.claviantica.com/Publications_files/The_Tiorbino/The_tiorbino.htm - I love the part where a buyer asks the maker to build another one if the first one goes out of tune! A great idea, albeit somewhat expensive... Although these are keyboard topics, I'm sure they will be of interest to some here. Rob MacKillop -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
